The Bogey Book
by Ergott
Summary: Halloween is the season for ghosts and ghoulies! When witches dance, goblins run amok, and certain Goblin Kings reveal their true colors. Slightly quirky/dark J/S.
1. Monday

**The Bogey Book**

Monday

Smithburg was a cozy town, a quite place to live that possessed the typical historical flair of the northeastern states. It was Hometown USA, were children were raised with a loving touch and everyone tried to uphold common values without appearing too conservative. It was a wonderful place to live with friendly neighbors and sprawling houses that nestled amid the old trees and forests.

But Smithburg had a secret, a secret so dark and ancient that only the walls of the old library could tell the story. Something dangerous had settled in the city, spending century upon century spreading its darkness. But the darkness was slow and weak from the lack of belief in the spectacular so, in the two hundred years since it's last attack, it had only been able to manifest itself in the form of a book. It was bound in red leather with gold detailing and took many faces: sometimes it was _The Labyrinth_, a play of fantasy, and sometimes it was the nightmarish _Le Livre De Bogey_.

It was often said that no harm ever came from reading a book; the saying was dead wrong. The course of human history had been inexorably altered by Bogey books, each new reading bringing humanity closer to chaos, closer to the lawless feeding-ground that the dark power craved.

In fifty years, the book had only been checked out once, but it longed to be checked out again. It yearned for the soft touch of the girl who had been so foolish as to think that she could truly hide from the Bogeyman.

* * *

"You're a heartless bitch, you know that?!"

"Yeah? Well you're a cold fish!" Sarah Williams shouted to the retreating back of her now ex-boyfriend. The argument had started over something stupid, as arguments often did; they had been discussing what they were planning to dress as for Lenny Jenkins's Halloween party and one small disagreement in costume ideas had lead to a shouting match about the inadequacies of their relationship. Will said she was emotionally distant, and she said he was overly needy; he said he couldn't be intimate with someone who wasn't willing to commit to the relationship, and she had said there was nothing to commit to because, if a discussion about the benefits of a ruffled shirt could turn into a five-alarm emergency, they were obviously through.

Will's angry shoulders disappeared around the bend in the road, and she couldn't help but think that he was storming away like an angry child. How could she commit to a relationship when she secretly thought that he had all the emotional maturity of a tadpole? The sad thing was that he was definitely one of the more mature guys she knew. Sometimes it felt like she was looking for something that didn't exist; her eyes were wide open, but in all her eighteen years she had never found whatever it was she was looking for.

Sarah let out a disgusted sigh as she grabbed her car keys; she would leave matters of costumes for another time, right now she needed the peace of the library and the thrill of a good book.

The Smithburg Library was surprisingly empty for there being less than a week left before Halloween; usually there were droves of people looking for scary stories to help them get into the spooky mood or for proper costume ideas. Still, it was a Monday, and she couldn't help but be a tad grateful for the solitude. There was something in the air of the library that Sarah loved, a certain feeling of mystery and adventure, and it was easier to appreciate that when she was alone. She had tried to explain it to Toby once, but he hadn't understood, nor had any of her friends; they had all told her that she was just being dramatic. To them the library was just old and musty, but to her it was alive, and it was keeping secrets.

Smithburg's library was not particularly large, but nor was it particularly small; it was built of old stone and the inside reminded her of the reenactment villages that she had visited as a child. The wooden floors creaked, the stairs groaned, the lights seemed to twinkle with the remembrance of candle-flame, and the ancient books waited on their shelves, just begging to be read. If she had ever come across a more tempting sight, she could no longer remember it. And the library was a treasure-trove, too; she had passed through its arches hundreds of times, but each new visit uncovered new discoveries: books she had never heard of, never thought to look for, older than the elderly Victorian that she lived in, on countless subjects, each book a glimpse into a time gone by.

This visit was no exception. Deep in the stacks, where others rarely went, was a dusty world of forgotten tomes. Faded, twisted spines lined the shelves, their brilliant lettering dulled from time, each one begging her to take a peek inside. She had found a wonderful book here once, hadn't she? A play of some sort, she thought absently. She couldn't remember anything about it, other than the fact that it had been an intense reading. The title and details had long since faded from her mind, but she had spent countless visits looking for something she wasn't even sure she'd be able to identify.

Sarah walked up and down the forgotten shelves, running a curious finger over the spine of each book. Nothing had really caught her eye until her finger came to rest upon soft leather binding. It was a brilliant red, compared to the others, paradoxically aged and yet still looking fresh next to the tattered volumes that lived beside it. Gold lettering adorned its spine and, when she pulled it off the shelf, she saw that intricate knot-work played across its cover. Something about it seemed strangely familiar, but she couldn't place what it was.

"Le Livre De Bogey," Sarah read, affecting her best hammy-French accent. She was no expert on foreign languages, but she thought it meant The Bogey Book. Strangely intrigued, she flipped through the pages; much to her relief, it was actually in English. Flowing script raced across the pages, looking as though the tome had been penned rather than printed. Her fingers froze when she reached the dedication page. _To Sarah_, it read simply. No explanation, no further dedications, just for Sarah.

A strange feeling stole over her then, seemed to creep up through her fingers and settle into her chest. It was an interesting coincidence that the book had been dedicated to someone of the same name and she briefly wondered who this Sarah had been, but warnings where suddenly flashing in her head, telling her that there was no such thing as coincidence. The book felt unnaturally heavy in her hands, the strange sense of unease making her palms sweaty.

* * *

Sarah sat at her desk, idly flipping through the pages of a book.

She would never quite figure out what had happened that afternoon. After a few more seconds of anxious dread, she had slammed Le Livre De Boogey back on its shelf and walked away. She had spent the next hour in the section of the library dedicated to plays and the theater, once again searching for that mysterious book that stayed just out of the reach of her memories. The hour had passed by slowly, but by the end of it she had found two likely candidates.

It wasn't until she was halfway home that she realized there were three books stacked on her passenger seat instead of only two. Dread had swept over her once more, but she had waited until she was surrounded by the comforts of her bedroom to investigate the mystery.

Her hands started to shake a bit as she flipped a few more pages. The book that shouldn't have been there was red and gold, its brilliance seeming to mock her.

She had checked out The Bogey Book.

* * *

A/N: I've never written a Halloween story before, but I'm going to do my best to update this one each day until the climax on Halloween night (this Friday). Keeping that in mind, the chapters will probably be a bit on the short side (like Wedding Dress For Sale was).

I give blatant thanks and praise to Disney Channel's _Don't Look Under The Bed_. It was a made for TV Halloween movie, back in '99, and it's one of my favorite movies of all time. It' a bit campy, but fun, and I stole from it left and right for this story.

This story is my contribution for the Scary Faeries Halloween writing challenge, over at The Harem. The idea was already bouncing around in my head, but the Ladies gave me that extra push I needed to write it.

I would highly recommend listening to classic Halloween songs while reading this: Thriller, Bad Moon Rising, Witch Queen of New Orleans, Monster Mash, Somebody's Watching Me, Welcome to My Nightmare, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Sweet Dreams, Hocus Pocus, Love Potion No. 9, People Are Strange, and other songs like that.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: _Le Livre De Bogey_ is from Don't Look Under The Bed, which belongs to Disney. Sarah and any other characters from Labyrinth belong to Henson.


	2. Tuesday

Tuesday

He had many faces—the Bogeyman, the Goblin King, a nameless lurking darkness—but he was the specter of The Book, the creature that gave it form, and his name was Jareth. None had come close enough over the long centuries to learn his name, save for one: a young girl with a head full of fantasy.

He sighed, watching Sarah from behind a veil that her mortal eyes could never pierce. It had taken him several years to find his way back into her hands, and what he now saw bothered him. She was taller, _older_. Her long chocolate hair had been cut to an inch below her shoulders and layered to frame her lovely face; her emerald eyes now saw the world through a haze of education, rather than the jewel-bright fantasy that she had once seen. It frustrated him, but Jareth finally admitted that, in the time it took him to return to her, his little girl had turned into a young woman.

His kind instinctively chose a single victim and fed off their fear and belief. Once they had gained enough strength, they worked through their victims to bring chaos into the world, to nourish the inhuman need for disorder. Always, the victim was a child; they were easier to scare and control, because they believed stronger than anyone else. Sometimes the creatures would stay with the same victim long past childhood, but that was because it was easy to control what the human believed in once you were already inside them. Jareth had chosen his own prey very carefully; Sarah Williams had been a blindingly bright star, shining through the murky world of disbelief. He had wanted her and her strength more than anything, but she had beaten him in that silly reproduction of _The Labyrinth_; he shouldn't have had to concede the fight, but her belief in The Right Words had been so strong that she had forced him back into his book. It had enraged him—_the girl was his!_—and when he was enraged, the world shook.

Jareth was the very worst of his kind. He was restless and volatile, childish and mischievous, cunning and ruthless; he was prideful and easily goaded into seeking revenge. He was the preeminent Bogeyman, the name that even other creatures of shadow refused to whisper for fear of summoning him.

He had been restricted to the book, but he had never stopped imagining the day when he'd get back to Sarah. It had never crossed his mind that she had already been too close to the brink of womanhood, that when he saw her again she would no longer be the melodramatic girl he remembered. It had only been a handful of years, but they had wrought so much change in her that he could barely find hint of the adversary that he so wanted to face.

The years could not change her belief, though; it had been dimmed, to be sure, but she still burned brighter than most humans ever did. She looked different, she acted different, but Sarah Williams was still a child at heart.

That wasn't exactly what Jareth had been hoping for, after all a child of mind and body was easier to control than one simply of the heart, but he had always relished a challenge. Time had denied him the second chance he had envisioned; he would have to work differently to ensnare the mind of a woman, but he refused to leave Sarah alone. It was, after all, simply within his nature to haunt.

Jareth smiled darkly, watching from the shadows as early morning light crept into the room, bathing Sarah in its weak glow. "You had better enjoy the light while you can, brave Sarah," he whispered to her sleeping ear, "because your world is about to get very dark, indeed."

* * *

Sarah woke up screaming but, as she struggled to catch her breath, the details of her nightmare faded from mind until she was left only with the memory of hawkish blue eyes. Her heart slowed its fast rhythm, but skipped a beat when her eyes settled on the red book that rested so innocently upon her desk.

The Bogey Book had followed her home. It wasn't logical, she couldn't explain it, but Sarah knew that she hadn't picked the book back up after her panicked re-shelving. Something about the book wasn't natural, wasn't right, and she had felt that with every fiber of her being. Standing in the dusty recesses of the library, it had felt as though something dark and restless had tried to crawl beneath her skin. Just thinking about it now, hours later, made her skin crawl.

Sarah wrapped one of the thick blankets around herself and slowly got out of bed, drawn to the book like a helpless moth to flame. It drew her eye, time and again, though she had tried her hardest to ignore it; the thing was just too damn creepy to devote any sort of attention to. And yet she couldn't turn away. Now, in the early morning hours when the world was still silent, it felt as though nothing existed beyond her four walls; as though it was just her and the book. She reached out and opened it, her fingers longing for the feel of leather and old paper, while the rest of her wanted nothing more than to simply get away.

_To Sarah_ blazed across the inside cover; the script was heavy, black, arrogant, accusing. There was no possible way that she was the Sarah it had been dedicated to—she was at least a hundred or so years too young—and yet… a small voice in the back of her mind was certain that she _was_, despite the illogic of it. There was a warning in those two simple words and it made her want to dive through the pages of _Le Livre De Bogey_, but she had a feeling that her world might turn upside-down if she dared.

With a jerky movement she shut the book, finally giving in to the urge to flee her own room.

* * *

"Oh god," Sarah whispered in shocked horror, "what are you?"

Her day had not gone well at all. In the twenty minutes it had taken her to get ready for school that morning she had felt the oppressive presence of the book in her room growing, felt it in the hollow of her back as though the book had eyes to stare at her with. Then, at school, she had found the leather-bound demon waiting for her in her locker, its gold lettering flickering sullenly. _Accusingly_. She had slammed her locker shut, her heart beating painfully fast, and had run to the safety of homeroom. When she had come back to her locker, several classes later and filled with immense dread, the book had been gone.

She had been willing to concede that perhaps she had made the event up, that her unease with the book and her unsettled state of mind from her forgotten nightmare had made her mind play tricks on her. But Sarah could not, would not, lie to herself. The moment she had walked back into her bedroom after coming home from school, she had seen that The Bogey Book had not been on her desk, where she had left it, but was laying open by her pillow. Inviting her to read.

"I know I didn't check you out," Sarah said to the book, "and yet here you are. I know I didn't take you to school, bring you back, or even move you from my desk, _yet here you are_!" She threw her backpack to the floor and angrily peeled off her jacket. "You're not _just_ a book, are you?" she asked, edging closer to her bed. "Real books don't haunt people."

The book didn't answer, but she felt the cool brush of that questing darkness once more, felt the silent urging to read.

"Dare I cast my fate upon devil's mercy?" she murmured quietly, hesitantly settling on the bed. The book rested heavily in her lap while her fingers flicker gently through the pages. "Chapter One," she read, "The Labyrinth." A haziness in her mind shifted from the familiarity of the words, but didn't quite dissipate.

* * *

Jareth smiled, thrilled that the first hurdle had been cleared so easily. A Bogeyman's influence depended upon how much of the book a victim had read, but once they started reading they couldn't seem to stop. It was always getting them to take that first step that was the hardest but Sarah's natural curiosity, combined with her spooked mood, had completed the task with hardly any effort on his part at all. One paltry chapter alone would give him the power to appear to her, if only in her dreams.

Time passed differently for him, since he spent most of it trapped in or around books, but he had felt the subtle march of the years. To him it had been a laughable amount of time, barely worth noticing, but to Sarah it might as well have been a small eternity. He suddenly, acutely, felt the years stretching out behind him, separating him from the girl until it felt like their last meeting had happened a lifetime ago. She _could not_ slip away from him this time, Jareth thought adamantly, he would go mad with wanting for her and, if fate were strange enough to give him a third chance, who was to say how old she'd be when next they met. It was Bogey or bust this time.

Sarah made a strange noise, her fingers hovering over a woodcutting of a young girl running through the twisting passageways of a labyrinth. She had forgotten that event—human memory always tried to make them forget, as though that could somehow protect them—but something in her still knew.

Jareth ran an unseen had over her hair; she shivered, her eyes darting across the room for a moment. "Remember me, Sarah," he murmured into her ear. "Remember me so that you might see me with the same sweet terror you once did."

* * *

Sarah's mind struggled against the words she read. Each new sentence resonated within her until she could picture even the tiniest of details. As if she had been there.

Her thoughts heaved violently at the random musing. Again, she had the curious feeling that there was a haziness wrapped around her memories, but it was thinning now, letting small things back in.

"Through dangers untold," she quote from the book, "and hardships unnumbered—"

A decorative glass bottle rolled off the end of her desk and shattered on the floor, jerking Sarah away from the book for a moment. She stared at the mess in confusiont, knowing that there was no logical way for it to have done what it had. She shivered, eyes darting about her room once more. Why did it suddenly fell as though there was _someone else_ in there with her?

* * *

A/N: I'm actually surprised at how many of you have seen Don't Look Under The Bed!

Please Review!

Disclaimer: Labyrinth is Henson's. Don't Look Under The Bed is Disney's.


	3. Wednesday

Wednesday

_Dancers whirled past Sarah, their movements jerky and cyclical, like figurines stuck on a giant music box, each one repeating the same set of mechanical, lifeless motions. Their painted faces were smiling but blank, like dolls with no purpose other than to please. Of course, if that was their function, their creator had missed by a mile. It was creepy and… familiar._

_An image flashed through her mind: a young girl in a white dress, wandering, lost amid a sea of gluttony and decadence, surrounded by dark and nightmarish dancers. Had _she_ been that girl? This scene was different, though. The dancers didn't seem to have any will of their own, and she was definitely _not_ wearing white._

_Sarah's dress fell to the floor in a cascade of black gossamer. Woven here and there through the flowing material were small chips of crystal beads, to catch the light, and silver silk lashed delicate patterns along the length of her bodice. Wispy sleeves fell from her shoulders, thousands of loose-fitted strands held together in one place, like the intricate design of a black spider web across her pale flesh. A simple black velvet choker encircled her throat, while her hair tumbled down her back with only the smallest of crystal adornment. _

_Something blue darted from the corner of her eye, but when Sarah made to go after it the dancers turned in unison, blocking her way. "Looking for something, Sarah?" a dark voice whispered in her ear, but there was no one there. "Forgotten something, perhaps?" Another flash of blue, and again the dancers blocked her way. _

"_Where are you?" she demanded. "_Who_ are you?"_

"_You wound me, precious thing," the voice continued to whisper. "How quickly I've been forgotten."_

_Sarah tried to push through the crowd, but the dance had turn fast and angry, keeping her perpetually in the same spot._

"_But I suppose I shall have to make allowances; you are, after all, only human," the whisper had switched to her other ear, but she still could not find the one who was speaking._

"_Then what are you," she asked plainly, frustration beginning to color her voice, "if not human?"_

_The voice laughed then, a dark sound that rolled around the room and sent shivers down her spine. It was a laugh that made her think of empty caverns and cold winds. "I'm every shadow you see flitting through the darkness; I'm the figure you see from the corner of your eye, but is always gone when you turn to look; I'm the nightmare that haunts you but provides no memory of what caused your terror."_

"_You're also extremely longwinded," Sarah muttered, rolling her eyes. "And people tell me _I'm_ melodramatic."_

_The dancers parted until there was a clear path between her and a man in blue. He was unlike anyone she had ever seen, with his wild blond hair and piercing eyes the color of ice. His clothes were finely tailored, a beautiful creation of silk and velvet and diamonds, with high black boots and well fitting gloves, but despite his cultured appearance she couldn't help but feel that there was something about the man that seemed… untamed. There was a wild aura around him, intense and dark. He stood with his legs spread wide, arms crossed over his chest, defensive but commanding, and a smirk played about his lips while his eyes gazed at her with familiarity. And longing._

_Sarah shivered and her vision seemed to fragment. Through one eye she could see him as he was: a stranger. Through the other eye she could see him as something else entirely: her greatest challenge and her first real crush. A name sprang to her lips, but never fully formed._

_He titled his head to the side. "Your mind tries so hard to not remember. Jareth, pet; my name is Jareth."_

_Thousands of images raced through her brain, each more confusing than the last—high brick walls twisting around her in an endless maze, monsters that looked scary but were really just silly, monsters that looked silly and turned out to be scary, dark places and peaches and glitter and, above all, the man before her—until her mind shoved them back into a dark corner. It was a strange feeling; until that very moment, she hadn't realized that the dark corner was there, but now she would always know, just as she would always know that it hid something strange. _

_Sarah shook her head and refocused on the man—creature?—who stood at the other end of the dancer-created clearing. "This is a dream, isn't it?" she finally said. "I read about a Jareth in that ridiculous _Le Livre De Bogey_ and now I'm dreaming about it."_

_The man ignored her statement. "It's a sad life you lead," he murmured, walking down the cleared path, drawing ever closer. "You delved deeper into a world of fantasy than Mary 'We are not a codfish' Poppins; you not only stood toe-to-toe with the greatest rival nature could have provided, but you beat me at my own game, too. And how does your mind repay you for that?" he asked silkily. By this point he had drawn level and was pacing around her in a tight circle like a wolf. He stopped at her back, placing his hands on her shoulders, and leaned in to whisper into her ear. "Made you forget. Took every single memory, good or bad, and locked it away."_

_She shivered; having him at her back was disconcerting. "Maybe I was meant to forget," she replied._

_Jareth chuckled, ruffling the hair against her neck. "That _is_ the natural order of things," he agreed, "but your triumphs deserve better." His arms slipped down to wrap around her waist. "You and I," he breathed, "we're two of a kind, Sarah. Yin and Yang. You crave fantasy and I crave humanity. Why not help each other out?"_

"_Because," she said simply, "you're molesting me," then added as an afterthought, "and this is only a dream."_

"_Very well," he sighed, not removing his hands, "we'll do this the hard way. Again." But, somehow, he didn't sound very upset by that fact._

_The dancers began to whirl around them once more, and Sarah was hit with an abrupt sense of dizziness as she swooned in Jareth's grasp._

* * *

Sarah woke with a start and immediately realized four things. One: _Le Livre De Bogey_ was resting serenely across her stomach, like some bizarre parody of a napping cat. Two: she was wearing the dark-fantasy dress from her dream, the gossamer skirts pooled around her artistically. Three: she was not in bed or, indeed, even at home. Early morning light filtered through the brightly colored trees as the three-story clock tower rose a mere one-story above her. She was on top of the town hall.

Four: she was not alone.

The man from her dream was kneeling less than a yard away, his head cocked curiously to the side, but he was flickering in and out of sight, as though he had solidity problems. "Smithburg has certainly changed over the years," he said, his voice coming out clearly, even as his body faded like the images of an old movie. "I've grown so accustomed to the stagnant world of the library," he mused, pale eyes surveying the town.

"Why are you here," she asked, shocked and wondering if she was still dreaming. "Well," Sarah amended, watching as he disappeared from his crouching position, only to reappear halfway through standing up, "mostly here, anyway."

"You have to read more of the book," Jareth replied, standing as close to the edge of the roof as he could. "Still, _some_ form is better than _no_ form."

She took hold of the book, studying its deceptively innocent cover as she slowly got to her feet, hindered a bit by the lengthy material of her dress. "You mean to tell me," she accused, "that you came from _the book_?"

"Of course not," he answered absently, "I _am_ the book."

"Right," she muttered sarcastically, "because that makes _so_ much more sense."

Jareth finally turned around to face her, raising an eyebrow at her snarky words. "Read the book, Sarah," he admonished, "it's all there."

"I wasn't aware that poltergeists came with homework," she quipped.

He gave her an offended look. "Poltergeist? The indignity!" Jareth slashed his hands through the air, waving away her statement. "I am the Bogeyman," he said, preening.

She stared at him for a moment, watching as the effect of his proud stance was completely ruined by his solidity impairment. He looked like a spastic Christmas decoration. "The Bogeyman? Well, that's… perfect. Just freakin' _perfect_." She regarded the town below them, musing to herself. "Am I having some kind of post-traumatic stress from breaking up with Will? I mean, I know he was a bit of a whiny ass, but seriously… the Bogeyman? There is something wrong with me."

"So you can believe in the Goblin King at fourteen, but not the Bogeyman at eighteen?" he asked acerbically. "It's the same damn thing, Sarah! Does four years really make such a big difference?"

"If I pushed you off this building," she asked, completely ignoring his question, "would you die?"

"No," Jareth replied plainly, "and even if I did that would be _murder_. Getting a bit morbid in our old age, are we?"

Sarah bristled. "Eighteen is not old!"

"It is when you're used to haunting ten year olds; this is taking a lot more effort than I thought it would." He eyed her speculatively. "I don't suppose you could be persuaded to read another chapter or two?"

"No," she replied bluntly.

He sighed. "I didn't think so."

She waited for a few moments, but when he made no move to say anything further she asked, "That's it? Just 'I didn't think so,' that's all?"

A twisted smile bloomed over his lips, making her shiver. "Well," he purred, "I would hate to disappoint."

Below them, the town rippled. Buildings that she had been surrounded by her whole life shattered and fell to the ground in great heaps, Victorian and colonial structures rising up to take their places. Trees sprang from the ground, growing in the blink of an eye while the paved roads crumbled into dirt. In less than a minute, two hundred years worth of progress was erased and Smithburg was sent spiraling back in time.

"You can't stay visible for more than thirty seconds, but you can enchant an entire town?" Sarah asked confusedly.

He ignored her comment. "I'll make you a deal. There's something in this town I want; if you can find it, I'll change everything back."

* * *

A/N: Mary Poppins reference in a story about the Bogeyman… probably one of the weirder things I've done. The 'solidity problems' comment was blatantly stolen from Farley, of Karen Marie Moning's Highlander romance series.

On a side note, today is the second year anniversary of my first Labyrinth posting (the first chapter of Dramatic Orchestrations)!

Please Review!

Labyrinth belongs to Henson; Don't Look Under The Bed and Mary Poppins belong to Disney.


	4. Thursday

Thursday

By Thursday afternoon Sarah was becoming frantic. The town had woken up on Wednesday to a different world. People had risen from bed to find their houses changed, to find the town stuck in some kind of time warp, to find that all the roads leading out of town simply lead straight back in. Smithburg had panicked and Wednesday had passed in a blur of chaos: town officials taking statements alongside what few police there were; people wandering the streets forlornly, looking for familiar sights that were no longer there; the unscrupulous taking advantage and looting what little was left of value; frantic families trying to reach an outside world that didn't seem to exist anymore. Everyone had gone to sleep that night, their hearts heavy with the hope that things would be back to normal come morning, but Thursday had dawned to the same vision the sun had set over.

Sarah had spent every spare moment trying to think of what it was that Jareth wanted. Though Smithburg was ignorant to the fact, their entire future was riding on Sarah's shoulders and the pressure was immense. If she didn't figure something out soon, Friday would pass in the same historical bubble, and tempers were already riding high from the lack of modern conveniences. The problem was that Jareth hadn't really said what it was he wanted. "Something," he had said, which was vague enough to make it anything, it didn't even have to be a tangible object.

"Stop brooding, Sarah," Karen snapped, polishing her ornate silverware. Some people panicked in a crisis, some people remained calm and organized, and some people went absolutely squirrelly. Karen had muddled her way through the situation, first by assuring that her family was okay, and then by proceeding to ignore that anything was wrong.

"I'm not brooding," Sarah replied, "I'm musing. There's a difference."

Karen snorted, an oddly indelicate sound for the refined woman. "I would think that you, of all people, would be enjoying yourself more. You read so many of the classics, I find it hard to believe that you're not just slipping right in to all this strangeness," her left eye twitched. "I mean," she corrected, fingers darting to press under her eye, "into the stream of things."

Her denial was fascinating, Sarah thought. Karen was trying so hard to pretend that nothing was the matter she had developed a nervous tick every time something out of the ordinary was mentioned. "It's not that I don't find this all very interesting," she finally answered, "it's just that I—" Sarah jolted upward from her lounging seat across a narrow sofa, Karen's previous words sinking into her brain. "What did you just say?" she asked quickly.

Karen shrugged, not looking away from her silverware. "I just find it odd that you're not thrilled with everything that's going on; I mean, you practically live in the historical section of the library."

Sarah jumped to her feet, muttering to herself as she raced up to her room. The conversation that she'd had with Jareth on top of town hall was playing through her mind.

"_I don't suppose you could be persuaded to read another chapter or two?"_

"_No."_

"_I didn't think so."_

That's what this whole damn thing was about! She hadn't been willing to read the book on her own, so he had decided to force her hand. There was no mythic quest, no magical object that he had his eyes on, he simply wanted her to do her Introduction to Bogeymen homework.

Sarah burst into her room. It, like the rest of Smithburg, had changed. The floor was simple planking with a rug thrown over it, the walls and ceiling were done in much the same fashion only with whitewash instead of carpet, her furniture had the strong look of handcrafted wood, her clothes and bed sheets had been replaced with scratchy wool and rough linens—though she did note that there were a few silk dresses hiding in the back of her armoire; an appeasement from Jareth, no doubt—and all her lamps had been replaced with candles. The early setting sun cast long shadows through her room and, as she shut her heavy door, the candle on her desk jumped to life of its own accord. She jumped, especially shaken when she saw that _Le Livre De Bogey_ was waiting for her, already opened to the second chapter.

"You plunged an entire town into chaos for thirty-six hours just to get me to read a book?" she muttered quietly.

She hadn't expected an answer, but Jareth's voice whispered back from the shadows of her room. "Yes," he sounded pleased with himself. "I would have waited a whole year if that's what it took."

His hands settled over her shoulders as she seated herself at the desk, but Sarah refused to face him. "What happens to me?" she asked. "When I read, what happens to me?"

His grip tightened. "Does it matter?" he replied mockingly. "You have the key to saving your town right here within your grasp. All you have to do is read, and I'll fix everything."

Sarah ran her fingers over the edge of the book. "Yes," she finally answered, "it does matter." Her words came out slowly, but her tone was firm, "I've tried hard to stop being a brat, and I want to save the town as much as anyone else, but I'm not about to become a sacrifice."

"How selfless of you," he teased.

"I'm being honest," she defended. "You always want to think that you'd do the right thing when it's of the greatest importance, like all those heroes in the movies, but I'm only human so I'm generally scared of what I don't understand."

His grip tightened. "If it's an consolation, you've already read it once before."

Sarah jerked a bit, sitting up straighter. "_What_?"

Jareth chuckled. "That play you're always looking for, the one you can't remember?"

"The Labyrinth," she whispered, her memory shifting enough for the words to break free, "like the first chapter of The Bogey Book. Why don't I remember any of it?"

His hands began to play with her hair, smoothing her dark locks away from her face. "It's natural," he replied, "for humans, anyway." He began to plait the hair at her temples. "The mortal mind has a very rigid definition of reality, so anything that doesn't fit within those boundaries is altered or discarded. There was no possible way for your mind to alter the Labyrinth enough for you to deem it possible, so you've forgotten it. Fragments remain, but that is all."

She stayed quiet for a moment, trying to digest his information. Truthfully, she had known that there were things she couldn't remember ever since her dream but it was still a hard concept to fully grasp. "You side-tracked me," she accused, shaking the thoughts from her mind. "What happens to me when I read?"

"You are nothing, if not persistent," he said, a note of praise in his voice, as he twined her plaits together. "Nothing happens to you, Sarah."

There was something in that statement, something she should have been hearing but wasn't.

"Read," he urged.

Sarah stared out her window. The world outside was beautiful but strange. Evening shadows gathered around the dense trees, flitted from house to house with a will of their own, and all things familiar seemed to have vanished. She had the power to change that, even if Jareth's insistence made her suspicious. She turned back to the book and, with a sigh that would have done any martyr proud, began to read. From behind her she could feel Jareth looming, could feel his triumph.

And she didn't like it one damn bit.

* * *

A/N: Sorry this chapter is lamentably short, but today's busy for me; I had an exam this afternoon and tonight is the annual Halloween showing of Rocky Horror at the Student Union.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: I do not own _Le Livre De Bogey_, Jareth, Sarah, or Karen. I made Smithburg up, but I'm sure there's more than one or two of them out there.


	5. Friday

Friday

Jareth watched as the Halloween sun rose over a red sky. He was a night creature by habit and inclination, but something about Halloween made even the daylight tolerable. It was a day for ghosts and ghouls, a day when even the blackest of black-hearts did not fear to tread the mortal streets. A time for the celebration and glorification of deceit and wickedness.

He spared a glance over to Sarah; she was still hunched over The Bogey Book, hadn't paused once in her diligent reading, not even to sleep. She was nearly finished.

Which meant it was nearly time to play.

* * *

Sarah's head bobbed forward as her eyelids drooped, only to jerk back into a mostly-upright position when she caught herself. She hated staying up all night; sleep was the nectar of the gods, as far as she was concerned, and nothing on planet Earth was important enough to make her forgo it. Unfortunately, _Le Livre De Bogey_ was inexplicably addictive. Each new chapter was more confusing and frightening than the last, and yet she hadn't been able to put the book down the entire night.

Her head bobbed again as she turned the last page, but it was accompanied by a sense of satisfaction. She had done her end of the bargain, now it was time for Jareth to do his.

He had given up on looming behind her after the first few hours—which was still disturbing, considering the amount of time that he _had_ stood there—and had wandered off to explore her room. By early morning he had gotten bored and had spent the past hour gazing out the window. That's how Sarah found him when she turned around: watching the sun rise, a curious look on his face—somewhere between nostalgia and greed. The sight sent shivers down her spine, a sense of dread settling low in her belly, but she was determined to make things right. "Our bargain?" she inquired when he finally turned his attention to her.

He raised a brow, but nodded, gesturing vaguely. The room around her slowly bled from historical to modern, the roughly woven rugs replaced with plush carpets, posters returning to the walls as the warped glass was swapped for clearer, thinner panes. The color scheme was off but, all things considered, she figured it was better slightly wrong than completely different.

Until she looked out the window.

Things were back to normal, and yet not. Her neighborhood was populated with modern expansions once more, but there were _creatures_ roaming her street. The trees and landmarks that she had spent a lifetime memorizing were back again, but the sky had turned an ominous orange and much more than simple birds were flying across the sun—now much higher than it had been only moments before, more like an afternoon sun. She watched as Mrs. Murphy, the older lady next door, was swarmed by yipping goblins, each one tugging on her skirt like an unruly child, leading the poor woman in a whirlwind down the street. Black smoke curled into the discolored sky, and it was with a heavy heart that she realized her beloved library was engulfed in hungry flames.

Drowsiness fled her instantly. "Back!" Sarah sputtered, whipping around to face him. "You said you would change the town _back_!"

Jareth shrugged, looking much too comfortable leaning against her bed. "I never said _what_ I'd change it back to."

"You told me you'd _fix_ everything!" she snarled, not quite believing her ears.

"Yes," he agreed. "Fix, as in rig everything to my benefit."

She snarled. "You lied to me!"

"I find it fascinating," he said, standing up and drawing closer to her, "that you can have read The Bogey Book in its entirety and yet still sound shocked by this."

She fumed silently for a moment, trying to punch him in the gut once he got close enough, but his reflexes were lightning fast and he had her by the wrists before she managed to land a hit. "Bastard!" she growled. "I knew you were lying, I just didn't know how; you were too eager to get me to read that damn book! But I held up my end of the deal, so why can't you hold up yours?"

"I did," he replied easily.

"This isn't what I meant, and you know it," she snapped. "I read your idiotic book, now change my town back to _normal_!"

Jareth pulled her hands tight against him, drawing her close to his chest. "I lost once before," he murmured, "and it left a bitter taste in my mouth. I have no desire to do it again."

For the first time she noticed that he wasn't blinking in and out of sight anymore. "It made you stronger, didn't it?" she asked, trying to pull her hands away. "By my reading?"

His silence and refusal to let her go was answer enough.

"What is it you want?" she demanded hotly. "What was all this for?"

The silence stretched out.

"Damn it!" she shouted at him. "Why won't you answer me?"

"You already have all the answers you need, Sarah," he finally replied, laying a delicate kiss on the inside of her palm. "I didn't have you read the book just to waste time."

"You're supposed to terrorize children," she said, curling her captured hands back into fists, "that's what I learned. So why are you bothering me?"

"My strength comes from whoever I happen to be preying off of," Jareth stated, seeming suddenly distant. "The more they believe, the stronger I am."

Sarah glared at him, hating the used feeling that was bubbling within her. "So you made me read to strengthen my belief and solidify your hold over Smithburg," she accused.

He didn't deny it, but answered, "Your belief was already strong, that's why I wanted you in the first place." Jareth sighed, moving her wrists to one hand so that he could run his fingers over her cheek. "The world has grown mundane, Sarah; people see science where the used to see witchcraft. But you don't, do you?" His eyes burned into hers, blue fire meeting emerald ice. "You want there to be magic, you ache for fantasy, so that's what you choose to believe in. I just needed the book to focus your belief in me, to give me the connection I needed to stay in this world."

"So I'm just a conduit?" she asked quietly, finally breaking free of his hold. She backed up a few steps. "A vessel?"

"Those are such ugly words," he soothed, turning his gaze out the window once more. "I prefer to think of you as my partner-in-crime."

"I want no part of this," she snapped.

"It's already too late for that," Jareth murmured. "Look out there, Sarah," he gestured to the outside world, "what do you see?"

"Chaos," she answered immediately.

"Yes, but beyond that?" He stood in front of her window, teasing but immovable, the single most confusing person she had ever met. She had no answer to his question, and it didn't take him long to realize that. "Fantasy," he whispered. "A world filled with treasures to explore; so long as you can imagine it, it can happen. Think of it," he said, turning to face her with a smile, "you could be anyone or anything you wanted; you wouldn't have to toil away and waste your life on the monotony that pervades your mortal existence."

His words filled her room, filled her mind, made her ache, but she tried to ignore them.

"You want to fly with dragons?" he asked, stepping close to smooth her hair away from her face. "I can make it happen. You want a necklace made of moonlight and midnight fog?" His fingers trailed down her jaw. "It's yours. You want to dance with a magical king?" He caught her chin, lowering his head until their lips nearly touched. "Just ask."

Sarah's heart trembled. Everything she had ever wanted, all the dreams that she had been told were impossible, were just within reach. She did want to fly with dragons and wear enchanted jewelry and, despite her better judgment, she _did_ want to dance with the king before her. High school had been deadening to her heart—the youth of her nation convinced that they were too cool to believe in the spectacular—but the very thought of being able to reach out and touch the magic that everyone denied made her soul sing. The bright-eyed child of long ago stirred within her while the young woman that she had become considered a different temptation entirely.

She grudgingly had to admit that she liked his company. Jareth was strange and irreverent; he took her sarcasm in stride and he dripped of enchantment. True, he was the Bogeyman, and he certainly had the power to frighten or even harm her, but then that was true of anyone.

But, even as she considered the possibilities he offered, the visions from out her window flashed through her mind. Jareth spoke of fantasy, but the world outside was a nightmare. Beasts had sidled up her street, vicious looking creatures with fangs and claws, the sort that would destroy Smithburg if they were given enough time.

It was an easy decision to make, but it still broke her heart. "No," she whispered against his lips. "I can't condemn an entire town just because I want to live in a fairytale."

Jareth shook his head, the world melting around them until they were standing across the street from the cheerily blazing library. "I already told you," he said, letting go of her, "it's too late for that."

Sarah's mind raced, her thoughts jumping on adrenaline. There had to be a way to defeat him; everyone had a weakness. But how could you fight against magic? She shifted, watching as he surveyed the damage that his powers were bringing to the town, and noticed _Le Livre De Bogey_ sat at her feet.

Lightning struck her thoughts.

She had asked him once if falling from heights would kill him and, if he had been honest, it was likely that he was impervious to physical harm. But the very same conversation had revealed an interesting fact. Jareth _was_ The Bogey Book. So, she thought as she stared at the burning building in front of her, if she couldn't hurt the Goblin King through conventional methods, could she hurt him by hurting the book? There was only one way to find out.

Carefully, quietly, she picked up the book. Jareth whipped around, as though sensing her thoughts, a wild look in his eye. She didn't stop to think about the consequences for fear of giving him enough time to collect his thoughts enough to stop her, she just burst into a run. By the time she reached the pyre she was panicked and could feel him just a step behind her. She had one chance to make things right.

Her arm extended over the fire, the corners of _Le Livre De Bogey_ already singeing from the heat. "It's a horrible way to die," Jareth whispered into her ear, shocking her at his closeness. A note of pleading entered his voice, "Don't do it, Sarah."

* * *

A/N: Happy Halloween!

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Disclaimer: I own nothing.


	6. Epilogue: Saturday

Epilogue: Saturday

Sarah watched with grim determination as the pages of _Le Livre De Bogey_ smoked, curled, and smoldered, finally burning in a brilliant flash of purple fire. It had been one of the hardest decisions she'd ever had to make and, even as she watched the pages slowly turn to ash, she still wasn't sure if she'd done the right thing.

"Remind me again why you're doing this?" a whisper came from the shadows.

She turned around, facing the woods behind her house, and watched as Jareth slowly materialized. "So that you know I mean business," she replied gruffly. "If you ever slip up or do anything I don't like, I'll tear out more pages from the book and burn them."

Jareth gave her a skeptical look, then turned to watch the small fire burn itself out. He grimaced after a moment. "Those were the pages on time-travel," he grumbled. "Damn. And I _so_ enjoyed that power, too."

Sarah heaved a sigh, her mind going back to Halloween. She had been ready to toss The Bogey Book into the flaming mess of the library… until Jareth had spoken. _"It's a horrible way to die. Don't do it, Sarah."_ Her mind had immediately gotten stuck on the word 'die'. Her plan hadn't been murder until that point, she had merely wanted to help her town, but that one word had turned her whole world around. She didn't want to live in his world of chaos anymore than anyone else did, but was she really will to kill him in order to get things back to normal? She had joked about it, in frustration, but the reality had knotted her stomach. His offers had been brutally tempting, his company had been growing on her, and he looked human; she simply could not find it within herself to end his life.

Jareth had stood behind her, silent after his plea, watching as the pages of the book began to discolor, but he never touched her, never made a move to stop her. Just an intense presence waiting for her verdict. Her warrior's heart had crumbled and she'd had no choice but to take the book away from the flames, back to safety. He hadn't said anything, not even when she'd muttered, "I am _so_ going to hell for this."

She had decided to keep the Bogeyman. And, though she wasn't willing to burn the book as a whole, she was, in no way, above burning a couple of pages to make a point. She'd even gone out and bought herself an old-fashioned Zippo lighter expressly for that purpose. It was a good leash to have over someone like him because she had a feeling that things would be strange enough without having to worry about his many powers and amoral wiles.

"You couldn't have burned the pages on my astoundingly useless ability to turn milk sour?" Jareth interrupted her thoughts, bringing her back to the present.

Sarah shrugged. "I could have," she conceded, "but I didn't want to chance you being able to go back and undo Halloween. If it's not in the book then I don't have to worry about you screwing around with time."

"And you'll only burn pages when I do something that isn't _nice_?" he sneered the last words, sounding thoroughly disgusted with it.

She nodded.

"So if I kicked you in the shins right now, would you destroy number two eighty?" he asked, a hopeful note in his voice.

She flipped to the page in question. "Restoring items to a previous condition," she read. "You're just trying to get out of rebuilding the library, aren't you?" she asked with a glare.

"If you had been trapped in that building for two hundred years, you wouldn't want to see it rebuilt either," he stated firmly. "That place was a prison to me, and waiting through the unending years for someone to release me from the book was torture."

She continued to glare at him, completely unsympathetic. The library had been her favorite place in all of Smithburg and he'd razed it to the ground like a petulant child. "If it will make you feel any better you can modify a few things but you are going to rebuild it or, so help me, I will burn the entire chapter on physical form. I doubt you'd have any fun at all as a free-floating miasma of bogey-ish intent."

He grimaced. "I'm going to regret not taking the book from you, aren't I?"

"You could have," Sarah finally acknowledged something that had been bothering her deeply. "You have more powers than you know what to do with, you're faster than I am, and yet I made it to the library's fire before you did. Why is that? Why didn't you try to stop me?"

He didn't answer.

"Fine, keep your secrets," she huffed when the silence began to stretch on. "But we have a long future together, buddy boy," she warned, waving the book in his face, "and I'll find a way to get it out of you sooner or later."

* * *

Jareth hadn't tried to stop her because the thought of death, of permanent release from the bonds of _Le Livre De Bogey_ hadn't seemed like such a bad thing. He had spent two hundred years alone, trapped in a library where no one could see him because his life was dictated by the words of The Bogey Book. For two hundred years he had been forced to watch the world change without being able to partake in its glory. He had had to live with the knowledge that even when he did manage to join the human world, he would be driven to destroy it because the book demanded that he create chaos. And not only that, but his time in the mortal world was always brief—a short burst of joy and freedom followed by another long stretch of isolation.

Stopping Sarah wouldn't have been hard at all, as she had pointed out, but he had wanted out of the endless cycle. It had been ironic and fitting that she had threatened to throw the book into the library's fire; both had been insufferable prisons to him, so why shouldn't they burn together? Fire was a horrible why to die though, and some part of him loathed the thought of defeat, so he had been driven to offer up his one plea, but had made no move to stop the girl.

She had taken his plea to heart, though, and for a moment he had been sharply disappointed. Until he had learned that Sarah had no more love for the book than he did, that is. Let her burn the pages; every power she took away just made him that much less its prisoner. He could live; for the first time in his long and weary existence, he could finally _live_.

Jareth smiled as he watched Sarah stomp up to the house, then bang her way around the kitchen, still irked with him. They had a lot of problems to work out, like how to explain to Smithburg what had happened, or how to explain his sudden appearance and strange abilities to anyone who noticed, but they would come up with something. Together. He owed a lot to her, and even though it amused him to keep her frustrated, he would not allow her to work alone anymore. She had saved him and, whether or not she liked it or even realized it, that simple action had earned her the loyalty of the Goblin King.

Less than a week ago, he had despised his immortal existence. Now, watching Sarah curse and grumble to whatever she was cutting in the kitchen, Jareth couldn't help but think that perhaps life was not such a curse after all.

* * *

A/N: My deepest apologies to those who thought that the last chapter was the end; even I would never be so cruel and, as many of you pointed out, there were still a few holes that needed to be filled in.

Anyway, I hope you all had fun; it was certainly interesting to write. Thank you to everyone who reviewed; I was blown away by the wonderful responses you guys gave!

Please Review!

Disclaimer: I don't own… anything. I don't even have any real original characters in this story.


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